Sunday, July 19, 2009

50 Cent Discusses New Jekyll & Hyde...

Not long ago, we got wind of one of the more head-scratching new projects of late--a "reimagining" of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, to star Forrest Whitaker and 50 Cent. But since May when the project was announced, it's been pretty much kept under wraps, until now.

On Friday, 50 Cent--a.k.a. the world's worst actor--finally broke the silence, talking to MTV about the movie and his role in it:

"It's gonna be intense. [Abel Ferrara] is an excellent director, so his creative ideas will definitely be an injective into what it's actually gonna turn out to be."

A free Vault of Horror T-shirt to anyone who can explain to me what that even means... Anyway, Ferrara, some of you may know, was the director of the controversial and acclaimed 1992 Harvel Keitel film Bad Lieutenant, and of course Whitaker is one of the finest actors of our time (if you haven't seen The Last King of Scotland yet, do so immediately). Mr. Cent, however, is just another rapper wannabe-actor littering our beloved genre with his presence. Sigh...

Fitty even acknowledged the running gag of no one being sure which actor was going to play which role. For the record, according the MC, he will be playing Mr. Hyde, and Whitaker will be Dr. Jekyll. Also, the film will be modernized to take place in the present day. Shooting is set to begin at the end of the summer.

John Barrymore. Fredric March. Spencer Tracy. Jack Palance. Michael Caine. John Malkovich. 50 Cent. "One of these things is not like the other..."

The sad thing is, this would have the potential to be quite excellent with Whitaker playing both Jekyll and Hyde, as every actor who has ever previously tackled the role has done. But with the stone-faced and marble-mouthed rapper stepping into the juicy part, its much more likely that this film will be an embarrassment than anything else. As someone who has been anxiously awaiting a new adaptation of Stevenson's novel, color me frustrated.

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In the grand tradition of Day of the Woman's "This Just In" posts, I had two random images I wanted to share with you tonight. They're from the fifth birthday party of my son Skeleton Jack (a.k.a. Wee-Sol). As most of you may have gathered from our vlog yesterday, Wee-Sol is a rabid Godzilla-phile like his old man, so it was no wonder that he chose Big G as the theme for his party!

Check out the boss cake, made using a high-res jpeg I snagged off the internet. Stop-n-Shop was able to scan the image and slap it on the cake in the form of delicious sugary goodness! What will they think of next?

Later on, it was Godzilla vs. A bunch of kids, as we strung up the pinata effigy of the radioactive monster in the backyard... OK, so Godzilla isn't blue. Yeah, it's just a random T-Rex pinata. Look, we did the best we could. They couldn't tell the diff anyway, the clueless little partygoers. Anyway, here's a shot of the lynched lizard, moments before I had to step in and decapitate him with a Swiffer handle...

13 comments:

"It's gonna be intense. [Abel Ferrara] is an excellent director, so his creative ideas will definitely be an injective into what it's actually gonna turn out to be."

Okay, I'm stupid enough to give this a go...

"It's going to be intense"Roughly this translates as, 'it's going to be packed full of car chases, shoot outs and minimal on the dialogue' – You know, just as Mr Stevenson wrote it.

"[Abel Ferrara] is an excellent director"This translates as, 'I've heard that [some director] will cast me in a film'

"so his creative ideas will definitely be an injective"Now then, this means, 'I'm so stoked to be cast in another film, despite my terrible, terrible acting that I'm going to make up some new words'

Or

Fiddy is actually referring to some complex mathematics:

"In mathematics, an injective function is a function which associates distinct arguments with distinct values; that is, every unique argument produces a unique result."

Which, if you think about it, makes more sense than casting the non-acting rapper in a(nother) remake of RLS's classic.

And now the final bit:

"into what it's actually gonna turn out to be."

'Awful'.

So, putting it together we get:

"it's going to be packed full of car chases, shoot outs and minimal on the dialogue. I've heard that [some director] will cast me in a film despite my terrible, terrible acting and I'm so happy that I'm going to either make up some new words or quote obscure mathematics... It's going to be that bad, awful even"

Anyway, whilst technically not a film, see if you can get hold of the British BBC drama production, 'Jekyll' starring the excellent John Hannah. Well worth it if you can get it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/jekyll/

I think you nailed it when you said Whitaker would be a good choice to play both Jeckyll and Hyde. It would also make more sense financially to not overpay the hip hop talent for acting badly. And it is not as if Whitaker, in addition to being an excellent actor, isn't a box office draw.

But what if Whitaker is Hyde? He can be very sinister when he wants to be, and it would be funny to see Fiddy have to play it straight. Maybe the stone face will help.

Otherwise this might end up being a more violent rendition of The Nutty Professor.

i dont care about you getting ahead of yourself on 50 cents performance-to-be. Its no different then getting caught up in this remake craze, yes there is garbage, yes there is garbage in every genre, get past it. But I guess you nailed it, Change-for-a-dollars primary goal is to make horror hounds angry by making *OUR* genre even less reputable.

Which horror film *should* be remade?

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I've been fascinated with horror ever since my parents let me watch The Exorcist at 8 years old (what were they thinking??) and I ran up to my bed screaming when Linda Blair's eyes rolled into the back of her head.Although it often gets a bad rap from "mainstream" critics and audiences alike, horror has often been the most creative and vibrant movie genre of all, from Nosferatu to Saw. Some of the finest motion pictures ever made are part of the horror genre, including Frankenstein, Psycho, The Shining and my personal all-time favorite, George Romero's Dawn of the Dead.This blog is the culmination of my 25-year love affair with all things blood and guts--so check back here often for news and opinion on the world of horror. And remember...